Offshore wind power industry has the potential to harvest a major portion of mankind's energy needs. Rising concerns over energy security, global warming, and eventual fossil fuel depletion led to an expansion of interest in all available forms of renewable energy. Worldwide, many thousands of wind turbines are now operating, with a total nameplate capacity of 194,400 MW. Typically, immense wind turbines are positioned in the sea and are spaced about 300 m apart to avoid energy-unfavorable aerodynamic cross-influence of eddies created from the movement of the wind turbines.
Despite the environmental advantages and the free and abundant energy source, there are various costs to set up the commercially available wind energy systems that keep these systems economically questionable. For example, each wind turbine needs to be held stationary, and have a power line leading to the shore. Each one needs to be maintained. Furthermore, the commercially available wind turbines are essentially at sea level and thus do not take advantage of the phenomenon that the wind power increases at higher elevations above sea level.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a system and a method for mitigating these disadvantages.